Monthly Archives: September 2008

A Market In Hope And Fear

As I speculated earlier this evening, it seems clear that today’s apparent bounce back in the stock market is based more on hope that reality:

It seemed, by many accounts, a far happier day than the last.

Hours after their worst drop since 1987, stocks reversed course on Tuesday and headed right back up on hopes that lawmakers were nearing an agreement on a bailout for the financial system. The Dow industrials jumped 485.21 points, erasing more than half its loss from Monday. Bank stocks rose sharply, investors were lured out of Treasury bonds, and the dollar soared. People were already looking for the best small business loans out there in light of this.

But alarms were sounding elsewhere in the byzantine channels of the global financial system, sending a clear message that the health of the world’s economy remained at risk of worsening.

Even as President Bush and Congressional leaders worked to make a rescue plan palatable to lawmakers, the flow of credit neared a standstill, making it more difficult for businesses to obtain the money they need for routine expenses like utilities and Payroll. Banks were still reluctant to lend, despite billions of dollars of cash offered up by central banks around the world. Early on Tuesday, banks were charging one another the highest overnight borrowing costs ever recorded, as measured by an important rate known as Libor.

Even the triple-digit stock rally, spurred by investors’ hopes that Congress will approve a revised version of a bailout plan, represented yet another of the big daily swings that reflect fragility and fear.

“This remains a volatile market,” said Quincy Krosby, the chief investment strategist at the Hartford, a financial services firm. “It remains a market that will move on headlines, on rumor. And it’s a market that has divorced itself from fundamentals.”

But even as the market bounced back, there were signs that the flow of credit was tightening significantly:

[P]roblems in the credit markets were widespread on Tuesday, making it more difficult for businesses and consumers to obtain financing, and driving down the value of assets held by money-market funds.

The interest rate on one-day commercial paper – usually a cheap source of financing for businesses – jumped to 3.95 percent, from 2.24 percent on Monday, pushing up the cost of these short-term loans.

In a sign that banks were increasingly unwilling to lend to one another, the Fed funds rate that they charge each other to get overnight loans to finance day-to-day operations, jumped as high as 7 percent on Tuesday morning – well above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target – before gradually falling back.

In the money-market world, institutional and retail investors appeared to be seeking more safety by transferring cash to funds that invest only in government securities, considered among the safest. From Sept. 15 to Monday, $372 billion, or 19 percent of their total assets, flowed out of prime funds. That reduced the amount of money available to corporations that count on these investors to purchase their short-term notes, which help supply their daily cash needs. Luckily for those who are interested in using short term loans no credit check is needed with some lenders.

“The money markets have completely broken down, with no trading taking place at all,” Christoph Rieger, a fixed-income strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort in Frankfurt, said. “Central banks are the only providers of cash to the market; no one else is lending.”

One of the more emphatic arguments that I’ve seen over the past week from people who support the bailout, whether they be pundits, politicians, or economists, is the idea that we need to do this to reassure lenders who are tightening up on credit because many of them are overexposed to mortgage loans, and mortgage-backed securities, of questionable value given the collapse of the housing market. If lenders don’t lend because they’re afraid to, the argument goes, the entire economy will grind to a halt. People are trying to look for Small Business Finance options to help them, and this would be an interesting method to inject the capital.

Now, there is a certain truth and logic to this argument. A lot of lenders are stuck with a lot of loans that may go belly up in the coming weeks or months. Because of that, they are being much more conservative in their lending practices already. If they tighten up even more, than it’s entirely possible that the economy could be pushed into a deep recession.

But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that at a $ 700 billion bailout is the right solution to our problems.

As I noted on Monday, the bailout bill would not solve any of the problems that we’re facing today, it would not eliminate the pain that will be felt thanks to years of easy credit and easy money policies by the Federal Reserve Board, Congress, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the rest of the banking industry. All the bailout will accomplish is to spread that pain throughout the economy and delay into some unknown point in the future the day of reckoning that must come for the mistakes that have been made. If the bailout happens, it may mean that the rest of this year, and the next several years will be better than they might have other wise —- but it will also mean that the dollar will continue to fall in value, inflation will increase, federal spending will go up even more than it already has, and the budget deficit and national debt will continue to soar. Someone will pay the price for that, and if the Federal Government takes ownership of the mortgage debacle, that someone will be the American taxpayer.

I honestly don’t think many people are thinking that far into the future, though. The markets are operating based on an insane combination of hope and fear, and the politicians are being guided by the same psychology into passing a bill not because they think it might work, but because they hope it will.

That, my friends, is a recipe for disaster.

Quote Of The Day — Orwell Would Be Proud

McCain on the Campaign trail, referring to the massive Treasury power-grab:

“The first thing I would do is say, ‘Let’s not call it a bailout. Let’s call it a rescue,’” McCain told CNN. He said, “Americans are frightened right now” and political leaders must give them an immediate solution and a longer-term approach to the problem.

Yes, let’s not call it an enormous power-grab by the Treasury to buy worthless assets for too much money in order to save a bunch of rich folks who made very bad decisions. That’s not a very good spin. How about “A bipartisan Congressional program to restore stability to the economy so that American families can better plan for their future.” That sounds much better.

Sure, call it a rescue instead of a bailout. Put lipstick on that pig, too, but let’s not pretend it’s no longer a pig.

California Taking All The Fun Out Of Driving

First, no phone calls unless they’re hands-free. Now, no texts or emails on my Crackberry…

Starting January 1, 2009 a new law will go into effect where writing, sending, or reading a text-based communication while driving will be against the law for all drivers in California.

This new law applies to electronic wireless communications devices used to manually communicate with any person using text-based communication, including, but not limited to, communications referred to as a text message, instant message, or electronic mail.

Violating this law is punishable by a base fine of $20 for a first offense and $50 for each subsequent offense. With the addition of penalty assessments, fines can be more than triple the base fine amount.

I suppose this won’t apply to those enforcing the law, though.

Thoughts On The Bailout

A few days ago, I tried to explain, in layman’s terms, how we ended up in this financial mess. I had this to say about the bailout:

We can debate whether or not this bailout should or shouldn’t occur (for the record, I’m against it), but in an election year, there’s nothing that’s going to derail this monster.

And it looks like today’s news proves that analysis correct momentarily premature. It’s clearly not in “stick a fork in it” stage yet, and you know that round 2 is on its way and will not be deterred.

So there’s still time to call it a stupid decision. I don’t have the time to devote to that today, so I’ll turn you over to the ever-talented Warren Meyer of Coyote Blog, who skewers the bailout plan. As they say, read the whole thing.

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